Horacio Lavandera has to resort to the memory of his father, José María, to tell that at the age of two he asked again and again to listen to the records of Chick Corea’s Electric Band. At four, he intended to play the double bass, but was convinced that his height was not going to get along with that instrument and he opted for the piano.
Only when he was seven did his family borrow one and he began to study. George Gershwin dazzled him at age eight. At 13, he entered the world of contemporary music with Alban Berg’s Three Extracts from Wozzeck.
Born into a family of musicians, his story is that of a child prodigy.
At 16 he was the winner of the 111th Umberto Micheli International Piano Competition, at La Scala in Milan. He also received the Special Prize of the La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra “Best Piano and Orchestra Performer”. His first album, “Debut”, was released in 2000 by the Testigo Recordings label, and includes works by Mozart, Chopin, Berg and Ginastera. He was selected in Maurizio Pollini’s Master Class on 2004.
He received the “El Primer Palau 2004” Award for his performance of “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” by Manuel de Falla. He also won the First Prize in the V Youth Biennial Contest of Musical Festivals of Buenos Aires {1999), Revelation in Classical Music Clarín to the Arts and the Show – {2002). After performing at the 2005 Buenos Aires Music Festivals, he would play in Spain, at London’s Wigmore Hall, at the Musikverein, in Vienna, and at the Radio France Auditorium, in Paris. The following year, he would make a new tour of Japan, while working on the edition of his second record work.
Today, at 20, he reveals himself as a thoughtful analyst of musical reality and almost two years ago he decided to settle in Europe to continue his career. Through a Scholarship from the Musical Youth of Madrid and the Spanish government, he settled in Madrid at the end of 2003, from where he consolidated his present, clearing himself -by dint of work- of his stigma of “child prodigy”.
